


Sundae Smile

by drugdog



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Drunken Confessions, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Queer Themes, Racist Language, Realizing You're Gay While Peeing on a Tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drugdog/pseuds/drugdog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He closed his eyes briefly, imagining Lew coming home to him with a tired smile. He’d pull him down by his work tie before he could ask him where dinner was in that half-joking way of his and kiss him silly.</p><p>Runner pictured the same thing with the prettiest broad he could think of, like one of the dozens his friends had crushes on in school, blonde and doe-eyed and just as sweet. He’d come home with his suitcase, loosening his tie and unbuttoning part of his jacket, and get a kiss from her. “You want that,” he lied, opening his eyes again and unsticking himself from the rough bark of the tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sundae Smile

Lew was taller than he was, and it wasn't so much a problem as it was an advantage- he could kick him in the ankle and he wouldn't see it coming until he was bent at the waist, swearing and laughing at him.

It wasn't a problem until some twisted part of his mind made it one.  
  
He couldn't remember most of the details of his dream, but he did remember standing in his dress blues on the beaches of Guadalcanal with Lew by his side.  
  
He had no fear of a Jap popping out at him, just a sense of satisfaction as he looked back and forth from the ocean, a brilliant array of oranges and greens in the light of the setting sun, to Lew, jaw not set for once and a soft smile on his face. He was barefoot, sand shifting below him, scraping when he dug his heel into it.  
  
"Go with me," Lew'd said, turning to him with his smile turning larger and nervous, and took his hand. Runner remembered shrugging.  
  
The dream became a blur of gentle touches, craning his neck to see more of Lew's wide grins, and the heat of his blush and the sun on his face. The moment when he got on his tiptoes and Lew leaned down to kiss him remained clear and sharp- Lew smelled like coconuts that hadn't rotted, tasted sweet.  
  
He woke up elated in the darkness and reality of Guadalcanal. His ribs felt as if they were about to snap under the pressure of something rising out of him. That something could've been a gasp, but it slipped from his mouth in the form of a tired grunt. He was warm inside, like he'd been drinking whiskey, and he felt an explosion of butterflies along with it. 

While he blinked and woke himself up, he realized he'd been dreaming of Lew, of being with Lew, which he wasn't supposed to do. And furthermore, he'd dreamed up something romantic, so he could hardly write it off as being away from broads for too long.  
  
If the Japs hadn't started raining hell on them, Runner supposed he would've begun to feel a strange mixture of disappointment and shame.  
  
It shifted into panic when he heard the familiar whistle of artillery. Runner flipped onto his side, hands coming down hard on Lew's ribs. He bounced back as if he'd been burned- Lew had started on the other side of the hole and he'd no clue he'd come so close. He could see him in the dark, face slack and calm, arms crossed. His eyes opened.  
  
"What the fuck, Runner?" Lew said, hand coming up to his chest. His words were weighted with sleep, and his eyes were only half-open.

"I-" was all Runner got out before the shell hit. Lew's eyes opened the rest of the way in clarity.  
  
The shelling provided a good opportunity to put the dream out of mind and ignore Lew. He spent the duration of it pressed against one of the walls of the hole, arms curled over his knees and head between them. He kept his eyes shut, and thought of survival rather than how Lew’s lips would feel on his in reality, if his adrenaline would spike if he were to kiss him in the darkness, if Lew would respond.

/  
  
“Do I want him?” Runner mumbled, pressing his hips forward and pissing against a tree. His clothes stuck to him in the heat, and his rifle was heavy on his shoulder. A mosquito buzzed in his ear, and he reached a hand up to squish it against his neck. He was, for once, alone. The jungle was quiet and dim.  
  
He thought of Lew’s smile and felt his chest swell up again, as if he’d just taken a big inhale and was holding in, and couldn’t suppress the small smile of his own that took away the grimace he wore.  
  
Runner tucked himself up and peeled his undershirt from his chest for the millionth time that day, forcing his smile off his face. There was no time for that. A Jap could be sneaking up on him, and he wouldn’t know.  
  
“At least I’d die with a smile,” he thought aloud, glancing up at the thick canopy of leaves and crossing branches of trees above him.  
  
He thought of what he’d do with him, if he really was a queer and Lew was queer too, assuming he lived long enough to get out of paradise.  
  
“Get an apartment,” he said, looking down to do up the buttons on his dungarees. “Get an apartment with ‘im and make ‘im a drink every goddamned day before he got home from work…” Runner turned and walked to the other side of the tree so he could lean against it without piss getting on his boots. He crossed his arms and looked out on the endless jungle.  
  
He closed his eyes briefly, imagining Lew coming home to him with a tired smile. He’d pull him down by his work tie before he could ask him where dinner was in that half-joking way of his and kiss him silly.  
  
Runner pictured the same thing with the prettiest broad he could think of, like one of the dozens his friends had crushes on in school, blonde and doe-eyed and just as sweet. He’d come home with his suitcase, loosening his tie and unbuttoning part of his jacket, and get a kiss from her. “You want that,” he lied, opening his eyes again and unsticking himself from the rough bark of the tree.

He headed back to camp, thinking of what dinners he could make for a work-worn Lew, his Lew, to make him grin.  
  
“You want that,” he repeated.  
  
/  
  
“It’s not that I think it’s wrong, I just don’t understand it,” Leckie said, looking up briefly from his most recent letter to Vera. “Why would you want a john? We’re all fucking disgusting. Take Chuckler, for example. Would any of you kiss him?”  
  
Lew laughed. “Vera would, if you told her how handsome I am,” he said, looking at the piece of paper in Leckie’s hands. Hoosier and Sid cackled.  
  
Runner put his hands in his lap, bowed his head, and thought yes. The dirt of the hole he was in was soft on his back, dirtying his jacket. His neck burned red, and he tried to keep the blush there from spreading to his face. Hoosier had started the discussion by saying, as he smoked a cigarette, “what do y’all think of queers?” He seemed to be against them, more than anyone else.  
  
“I’m talking about johns,” Leckie replied.  
  
“All of you would if I could just find some more god damned peaches,” Lew said. Runner cracked a smile because he had the feeling he was supposed to. He couldn’t bring himself to laugh like the rest of them, not while he kept replaying the dream from a month back and thinking they’d all find out, tell him there was something wrong with him, and get him out of the marines with a dishonorable discharge. “You’d give me all a big one right on the mouth before you started throwin’ up like Peaches over there.” Lew jerked his thumb back at Leckie.  
  
“Not Old Faithful, now,” Hoosier responded, shooting a pointed look at Runner. “‘Cause he’d be shittin’ himself silly again and ain’t nobody wants to kiss someone who’s takin’ a shit.” He crossed his arms. “And speakin’a Runner,” he added, turning to him the rest of the way and fixing him with a hard stare he immediately wanted to escape, “what d’you think of them?”  
  
Sweat trickled down his forehead, into his eye. He rubbed at it and wiped away the bit of it that had sprung up on his upper lip. He choked out an attempt at a laugh that was more of a wheeze and looked back at Hoosier.  
  
“Just isn’t my business, you know, who someone’s fuckin’, so long as they don’t shove it in my face, I don’t really… I don’t really give a shit about queers.” The words fell out of his mouth in a quick slur, and Hoosier’s look changed from judging to confused.  
  
“Say again?”  
  
“I don’t care if they- the queers- don’t shove it in my face,” he said again, and made himself laugh a second time. “It’s not my fuckin’ business, you know.”  
  
Hoosier snorted, twitching his cigarette up and down in his mouth. “Well, what if they did?” he asked. The hole had gone completely silent aside from the two of them. Runner felt the sun beating down on him, felt something itching on his insides, straining his ribs, as it had so many times before. But he wasn’t thinking of Lew anymore. He was anxious. “What if one of us was a fuckin’ queer and tried comin’ onto you?”  
  
“I’d tell ‘em no and tell one of the higher-ups about it.” He scratched the back of his neck. He looked from the ground back to Hoosier. “Can’t… can’t let ‘em get away with that.” He was hoping for someone to laugh again, just so Hoosier would stop looking at him like he could see into his soul.  
  
“And what if they-”  
  
“Look, Hoosier, we all know you’re just sayin’ that so you can tell how bad he’d act if you got on him,” Lew interrupted, tapping ashes from the end of his cigarette. “You can just ask him if he’d care if you sucked him off. You’re too great for any of us to get you discharged. Right, Bud?”  
  
Runner shifted. He folded his legs over each other. “Sure,” he said. The boys laughed again, and Runner felt a weight lift off him. The spotlight was away from him, onto a red-faced Hoosier. He sent a thank-you glance Lew’s way, tilting his head up to do it, before he could stop himself.  
  
“I’d never-” Hoosier started, but Runner barely heard him. Lew gave him one of his goofy grins, sweet and wide like the banana on a sundae, and an exaggerated wink. “I don’t stand for that bullshit. You talk to anyone who’s got an ounce’a sense in their head, they’ll tell you the same.”  
  
Runner looked down at his dirty hands with nails bitten to the quick and turned them over so he could see his sweating palms. He’d just escaped something big, the twisting in his gut akin to what happened after a shelling he’d been lucky enough to survive.  
  
/  
  
A shock of pain had him swearing and leaning hard against the stiff railing of the troop ship. He looked down at his foot, right next to Lew’s, and leaned back on his heels in hopes of alleviating the pain.  
  
“What the fuck, Lew? Watch where you’re stepping!” he snapped, and shot a hard kick at Lew’s ankle.  
  
Lew grunted in pain. He bent at the waist, just as he always did, but his nose almost caught Runner’s. They were packed together like sardines. He was close enough to lean up and kiss. Runner wondered, looking into his pale eyes, if he would taste just as sweet as his smiles looked.  
  
“Sorry,” Lew said, and smiled. He stepped away just as fast as he’d come close to him, almost colliding with the elbow of another man on the railing.  
  
Runner couldn’t help but feel a strange knot of disappointment inside of him, but it was easy to become immersed in the loud chatter of the other marines and the sound of waves hitting the side of the ship. He turned away from Lew and set his elbows on the railing again, looking out on the water and trying to catch a spot of land. He compared the blue-grey of the sea to the blue of Lew’s eyes.  
  
They were brighter, fuller of life despite all the fish down there, any day. Runner folded his arms and let a quick smile slip at the thought.  
  
/  
  
The MPs really gave a man a run for his money.  
  
One second, Runner was singing slurred and off-key, watching Lew grab some broad’s ass out of the corner of his eye, and the next, he was falling off a table and making a mad dash for the back door of the bar. He didn’t have a pass. He’d left when the MPs gave up like the rest of them.  
  
He’d been ridiculous to think the MPs would let them go so easily and not come after them. They had sticks lodged too far up their asses to let anyone else have a little fun before they got shipped out again and spent their nights miserable, battling nightmares, instead of trying to get it in with a sweet doll.  
  
Except, he thought, stumbling down a back alley and fighting the urge to vomit, he had no interest in getting it in with a doll, not even when he was drunk off his ass.  
  
He had an interest in getting it in with Lew, somewhat, anyway, though most of what he’d been playing through his mind in the past few months had to do with romance, with Lew smiling at him as if he were the light in his life and kissing him slow and smooth, more than it did with sex.  
  
Runner was taken from his thoughts by the sound of shoes coming down on the brick of the alley, approaching quickly. He sped up, remembering basic training and grueling double time as he did. The dirty ground came surging up at him- or maybe he was surging down at it, he was too drunk to tell- when he tripped over an uneven part of it.  
  
Before he made impact, the person following grabbed his collar and pulled him up. Runner hardly had time to feel the pressure of his shirt digging into his neck before he was on his feet again, heaving for breath, and looking up at Lew.  
  
“Hey, there, Bud,” he said, panting. His teeth were white in the dark when he pulled back his lips to offer a lopsided grin.  
  
Runner nodded, grabbing Lew’s arm and looking over his shoulder- or upper arm, he was too damn tall for that- and looked back at the distant back door of the bar. No MPs had come out that way, looking for AWOL marines. Lew leaned over some too, looking over his shoulder with him. “What’re you lookin’ for?” he asked, glancing at him.  
  
“MPs,” he replied, letting go of Lew and instead stumbling back to press himself against a wall of the alley. He pressed his chin to his chest, overcome with the urge to throw up, head spinning and thoughts unclear. Runner evened out his breathing and wiped his mouth, forcing the urge away.

When he looked up, Lew had his eyes fixed on him in a far different way than Hoosier- his stare was one made up of curiosity and concern.  
  
“You okay, there?” Lew was close as he’d been on the ship, if not closer. This time, Runner had no problem with slinging an arm over his neck and leaning up on the tips of his toes to press their lips together.  
  
“Um,” Runner said, and did what he had no problem doing.  
  
Lew stiffened. Runner pulled him closer with his free hand by the lapels of his jacket. He was drunk and his emotions were spilling over and if he was going to get punched for kissing Lew, he had to make it good. Cautious, he ran his tongue over Lew’s lower lip. He wasn’t sweet like he’d imagined. Runner tasted booze on him so strong he smelled it, too, sharp and sickening to his nose. He was warm, deep in his gut like the night of the dream, but the excitement of kissing Lew added onto it until his insides might as well have been baking.  
  
Runner held on for as long as he could and broke away lightheaded and panting, looking up at Lew, searching for some emotion and finding none.  
  
“Um,” Lew said, just as eloquent as he was, and grabbed the backs of his thighs. He pulled him off the ground and kissed him again, this time harder. Runner hooked his legs over Lew’s hips and clutched at his shirt, the sudden lack of his feet on the ground sending off warning signals to his drunken mind. He closed his eyes and distracted himself from a heavy wave of nausea with Lew.  
  
Lew slammed him against the wall. Runner grunted in pain, almost biting down on Lew’s lip, digging his knees into his sides. Lew’s hands slid up to his ass and Runner let out a stunted moan, leaning his head back against the bricks and opening his eyes. He could see over Lew’s head for once, and found some sort of pleasure in being able to look down at him.  
  
“Why’d you grab that broad’s ass in there if you wanna… if you wanna grab mine?” Runner asked, smiling despite himself.  
  
“I was thinkin’ of you,” Lew said, shrugging and making Runner grab onto him for dear life. “And now that I’ve grabbed it, I’m disappointed.”  
  
Runner was hit with more nausea, and he couldn’t brush it off anymore. It cramped his stomach. “Thanks, Lew, but I’ve got to…”  
  
“Oh, my God,” Lew said, and all but dropped him onto the bricks, stepping away from him. Runner turned his head from Lew in an instant, turning onto his side almost as fast as he had the night of the dream. He would’ve said thanks again had he not been throwing up all the alcohol he’d had that night.  
  
Runner wiped his mouth with his the back of his hand and looked up at Lew. “You like playin’ rough, huh?” he asked, voice rough and throat hot and scratchy.  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Lew said, scrubbing his face with his palm. “Jesus Christ.”  
  
“I just threw up. This isn’t a goddamn formal ball, Lew. Just call me Runner.” He got to his feet with a hand pressing hard against the wall of the alley.

Lew laughed and grinned, and Runner was sure it was all for him.

“I guess we’re fuckin’ queer-”

“Or you’re just drunk,” Runner interrupted.

“I guess at least one of us is queer,” Lew continued, “but probably both, considering I’ve been queer for you since Guadalcanal… And you also live up to your nickname of Old Faithful.”

“Fuck you, Chuckler,” Runner said.

“When you’re sober,” Lew said, reaching over to grab Runner’s hand. He gripped it tight, and Lew leaned down a little bit as if he were about to kiss him again. “And when you’ve brushed your teeth. Let’s go find the boys.”

Runner smiled. It didn’t have to be sunset on the beaches of a romanticized Guadalcanal for it to be just like his dream.

/

"God, I caught up to him in the alley, yeah? Ask him if he's okay, and five seconds later, he's fallin' on the ground and not only living up his nickname, but throwing up so much it surpassed anything Old Faithful could every produce," Lew said, leaning into the face of a revived Hoosier and talking with his hands. Hoosier leaned up and tossed his pillow at Lew's face, but he caught it and set it in his lap, resting his elbows on it.

Runner sat beside him, close enough for their thighs to touch. He wasn't sure if it was kissing him or being drunk that made him not give a shit about how it looked, but his cares had left for the night.

"You got another geyser that's more powerful'n Old Faithful, Peaches?" Hoosier asked, flipping onto his back and looking at Leckie, who was too busy looking at the address a doll had given him. He looked over with a grin on his face.

"Nah, I don't think so," he said, carding his fingers through his hair, "but there is the Niagra Falls, if that works for you."

"Niagra," Hoosier said, rolling back onto his side and looking at Runner. "We're callin' you Niagra now. Thank God for that, too, 'cause that shit was too many fuckin' letters."

Lew took an arm off the pillow to set it in the space between them. After a moment of hesitation, Runner set the tips of his fingers over Lew's. He turned his head to look at him. "What d'you think of that, Chuckler?" he asked, raising a brow at him in the low light.

"I think that's fuckin' swell, Niagra," Lew said, and gave him another one of his sundae smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> for an unnecessary detail: the "and now that i've grabbed it i'm disappointed" line comes from a tweet i made after initially watching the bar scene


End file.
